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Email letters, February 8, 2013

In reading your story and observing the picture of Laura Luke laughing at the expense of a spelling error made by City Council candidate Phyllis Norris, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the biblical admonition about whoever is without sin should throw the first stone.

I have observed spelling errors from time to time in The Daily Sentinel and I would wager that almost everyone at some point has been the victim of spell-check.

What I found refreshing in the article is a candidate owning up to a mistake…not fixing blame elsewhere or for that matter laughing at someone else’s misfortune. I do not think it was a coincidence that Laura Luke was there when your reporter showed up. This was clearly a ploy to embarrass Norris.

Phyllis showed real class in her response to the situation … someone else did not.

My vote for City Council goes to the kind of person who shows such integrity. It is no wonder that she rose through the ranks from grocery store checker to president/CEO at City Market. She took ownership of the error and fixed it. That is the kind of leadership we need on City Council.
KAREN FISCHER Grand Junction

Luke demonstrated lack of leadership by posing by sign

On Feb. 6 City Councilperson Laura Luke was shown in The Daily Sentinel laughing at the mistake on the sign of a non-incumbent council candidate. What kind of character does Laura Luke show when openly humiliating someone who has made an innocent mistake?

We all make mistakes as we go through life, and none of us want our mistakes printed in the paper. The diplomatic, compassionate response from Luke would have been to call the other candidate so the sign could be quickly fixed and then let the matter drop.

Is this the kind of person you want in a leadership position? I urge voters to remember how Luke handled this situation when you cast your vote next month.

BECKY NEESGrand Junction

Measures promoting safe use of firearms can save lives

Don Foster makes three very good suggestions in his letter (Feb. 7) about being informed before taking a position on gun laws. Unfortunately, he
concludes with a misleading comparison.

He says you are many times more likely to die in an automobile accident than from a gunshot.

It’s true that you’re more likely to die from a self-inflicted auto accident than be shot by a murderer, but that leaves out the cause of most gun deaths.

In fact, counting accidents and suicide, the number of gun deaths is within a few hundred of the driving-related toll. Auto deaths have declined substantially over the past several decades, in part because of government mandates related to safety and better roadway design.

Gun owners, friends and family have the most to gain from measures to promote safe use of firearms.

CHARLIE QUIMBYGrand Junction

Sane people in Denver, DC need to stop gun-control madness

The anti-gun rights Congress are hard at it in Denver and Washington D.C. They want to make me liable if someone robs me and steals my guns and shoots someone. They also want to make the people who manufactured the guns and ammo out as the bad men and want to be able to sue all of us.

Let’s not discriminate. Let’s make the manufactures of cars and ATVs responsible if someone drives them while drunk or in a careless way. Or make the farmer and rancher liable if someone eats rotten groceries that they themselves failed to keep fresh. There is also the maker of knives or blasting powder used for legal purposes that, should these politicians get their way, would be as guilty as the person who stole these items from them.

These politicians are trying to make a name for themselves at the cost of the law-abiding people who use these weapons for hunting, work or pleasure. I hope there are enough sane people in Denver and D.C. to stop this madness.
JOHN HOTCHKISSHotchkiss

BLM’s oil shale decisions reflect bureaucratic arrogance

In his column last Tuesday it seemed that even Jim Spehar (who for the most part defends the egregious overreaches of the BLM, or thinks they don’t go far enough) couldn’t elude the fact that that agency has refused to publish revised regulations for oil shale leasing, which it was supposed to have released May 15.

So, first, the BLM removes nearly all of the land containing oil shale from any consideration for development; and then does not tell anyone what the rules are for operating on the few slivers of land that are left.
This is not objective management of federal lands on the part of the BLM – this is pointed, vindictive persecution of a specific industry. This goes beyond the government merely picking winners and losers; it enters into the territory of the government forcing an industry to fail. The last time I checked, in this country that is the role of the marketplace and the consumer, not the government.

If oil shale is not viable, it won’t be produced—oil companies will lose some investment money, and that will be the end of it. If it is, then it is a valuable resource that will provide jobs and other economic benefits, as well as energy security for decades. It is not the BLM’s job to make that determination.

The Obama administration happily caved in to a conglomerate of anti-oil environmentalist groups, and rewrote the land use plan to those group’s specifications. Fine, elections have consequences. But the BLM was also duty-bound to publish the rules under which oil shale research and development leasing was to proceed. Its failure to do even that smacks of bureaucratic arrogance.

If even Spehar realizes this is not right, you know something is very wrong.
KIRK CONN Grand Junction

States correct in fighting huge costs of Obamacare

The long-dreaded Obamacare bomb is now a gut-wrenching “law of the land.” For a retired person living on Social Security and dependent on Medicare here in western Colorado, I can only speculate what will happen next.

For example, what will happen to the already skyrocketing “out of pocket” co-pays when millions more jump onto the Medicare bandwagon? They’ve been told it’s all free, and they’re anxious for it to kick in, but is it really free? Who pays? Who gets less care? Who gets more? Thinking on those questions should scare the bejesus out of most folks like me.

I have nightmares thinking about health care being rationed and decreasing as my wife and I grow older. Are there really going to be “death panels”? After all, somebody has to decide who gets treated and who doesn’t, right?

I’ve lived in America all my life, but when the individual mandate requiring me to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty, was declared constitutional by the Supreme Court, my blood ran cold. It told me two things were certain. First, one of the legs of the three-legged stool holding this mess together was still there. Second, the Supreme Court had finally gone completely mad.

It looks as if the last line of defense is a vigorous opposition to mandatory state insurance exchanges. For the first time I intend to write my congressman. Not that it’ll help, but it can’t hurt either.

I wonder why so many states are on record as already opposing the exchanges? Could it be the anticipated enormous costs to implement them later? I think that might just be it.

AL CARLEYGrand Junction
County sheriffs lauded for gun-control stance

Kudos to the county sheriffs of Colorado for the wonderful position paper on possible gun control legislation. I cannot adequately express how proud I am of our sheriffs for vowing to uphold the Constitution and for noting that more gun control laws will not stop the horrific multiple-shooting tragedies.

Statistics prove and common sense verifies that more gun laws are not the answer. Law-abiding citizens are the only people affected by laws; others will find ways to get guns. The problem is not that people can get guns, but that people want to kill.

Like the sheriffs, I agree that “deinstitutionalization” is a factor in such shootings. I also believe that behavior modification drugs, which can have devastating emotional side effects, are overprescribed when adults do not want to deal with “boys being boys.”

I think that too often parents don’t parent, either because they don’t know how or don’t want to give up their time. Prolonged exposure to violent video games and television may be a factor when there are no parental controls and input. Kids who are given everything may not learn how to deal with adversity.

We’ve taken God and morality out of our schools and raised kids with no concept of heaven, hell or an omnipotent presence watching them. And government payments have too often replaced fathers, without supplying the masculine role model children need.

There may be many causes, but more gun control is not a solution. I thank Colorado sheriffs for recognizing and publicizing that.